Terror alert grounds six US flights

Six US-bound flights from England, Scotland and France have been cancelled because of security concerns.

The US government said it had fresh indications of al-Qaida's continued interest in targeting commercial planes flying to the United States.

British Airways grounded the same flight scheduled for Sunday and Monday from London's Heathrow Airport to Dulles International Airport outside Washington, as well as the return flights. Also cancelled was a Sunday flight from London to Miami. In addition, Continental Airlines said it cancelled Sunday's Flight 17 from Glasgow, Scotland, to Los Angeles with an intermediate stop in Newark, New Jersey.

Air France scrubbed the same flight set for Sunday and Monday from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris to Dulles. As a result, the outbound flights were cancelled.

A US government official said there were concerns about a handful of flights on those foreign carriers and a US-based airline that flies internationally. The official declined to identify the third carrier, which turned out to be Continental.

"We continue to receive threat reporting that indicates al-Qaida's desire to target international aviation," said Brian Roehrkasse, spokesman for the Homeland Security Department.

Despite those threats, Roehrkasse said the department had no plans to raise the nation's terror alert level from yellow, or elevated risk of terrorist attack. Yellow is in the middle of the five-colour coded scale.

The decision to cancel the flights was made jointly by the US, British and French governments, according to a senior US law enforcement official.

The US government official said the threat information picked up by intelligence agencies specifically mentioned British Airways flight 223 from London to Dulles, British Airways flight 207 from London to Miami and Air France flight 026 from Paris to Washington.

Continental spokesman David Messing said his company cancelled the Glasgow-Los Angeles flight "because we were unable to obtain the necessary security clearance from the Department of Homeland Security and its international counterpart."